Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C.

The Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services has issued its most serious citation against a Winchester nursing home and as a result it will lose its Medicare and Medicaid funding, according to the Lexington (Kentucky) Herald-Leader. The citation is based on claims of abuse and neglect at Winchester Centre for Health and Rehabilitation that Health and Family Services officials would not detail. However Nursing Home Ombudsman Agency executive director Kathy Gannoe says her agency has received 31 complaints about the nursing home. Almost all were resolved satisfactorily, she says. However, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services plans to move forward on its plans to terminate its contract with the home by February 7.

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Tennessee nursing homes are lobbying the legislature to put a cap on the amount of damages that plaintiffs can collect in court, according to a report in Nashville, Tennessee’s The City Paper. Sixteen states, including Tennessee, do not put monetary limit for damages such as pain and suffering, which has resulted in millions of dollars in damages awarded to victims for nursing homes‘ violations of patient care. The nursing home industry says without damage limits, nursing homes in those states become a target for out-of-state trial lawyers.

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A U.S. Justice Department report claims that residents at William F. Green State Veterans Home in Bay Minette, Alabama, suffered significant harm and risk from the facility’s inadequate medical and nursing services, accoding to the Mobile Press Register.

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Kathleen Chmura thought it was her soda that tasted funny. Then she realized it was the ice. And it tasted like urine.

Chmura had scooped the ice from the ice bin at By the Lake senior assisted living facility she owns in Hayden, Idaho. She immediately had a suspect in mind – a disgruntled employee who had just joined two other employees in a walkout to protest of a firing of two employees three days prior, according to The Seattle Times.

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A Norman, Okla., nursing home could face fines of up to $3,000 a day for numerous deficiencies, including allegations of not fully investigating abuse allegations and endangering patients’ health by not providing condoms to a sexually active, HIV-positive patient, according to KTUL-TV.

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George King Sr., of Charleston, W.V., lived in Heartland of Charleston nursing home. He had Alzheimer’s Disease, and like many individuals suffering from the memory-loss disorder, King was prone to wander.

Many nursing homes who care for patients with Alzheimer’s have practices in place to ensure patients who wander stay within the nursing home wing where they live. But few practices are foolproof.

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Pleasant Manor Nursing Home in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was anything but pleasant for some residents there, according to the Tulsa World.

For one resident and her family, it was downright stressful.

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A Washington state watchdog group has identified serious problems in the way its state agencies investigate allegations of abuse and neglect of elderly or disabled adults, according to Seattle (Washington) P-I.

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Last month I told you the story of two nurses at Woodstock Residence in Woodstock, Ill., who were charged with criminal neglect and obstructing justice as a result into investigations into murders at the nursing home. Marty Himebaugh allegedly administered drugs such as morphine to calm restless patients and gave overdoses to others she deemed had lived long enough. Complaints made to her supervisor Penny Whitlock were dismissed.

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Most people identify the elderly as being the victims of abuse and neglect in a skilled nursing environment. But when it is reported that a nursing home is under investigation for burning a physically and mentally impaired foster child, it is a travesty.

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